Michael Jackson’s 2005 greatest-hits set is the best-selling album of 2026 so far, a posthumous surge the biopic released this spring helped drive past today’s biggest living stars.
Daily Mail reporting states that The Essential Michael Jackson leads the year-to-date sales race at the close of the third quarter, with the U.K.’s Official Charts Company confirming more than 508,000 units sold across downloads, streams, and physical copies.
The 38-track collection first arrived in 2005. Seventeen years after Jackson died in June 2009 at age 50, it is outselling new releases from artists still filling arenas.
The sales jump tracks the April release of the biopic Michael. The film stars Jackson’s real-life nephew, 30-year-old Jaafar Jackson, in the lead role, with Colman Domingo and Miles Teller also in the cast. Antoine Fuqua directed. The Michael Jackson estate signed off on the project.
Fuqua praised the young lead’s work on the film.
"It goes beyond the physical resemblance. It’s Michael’s spirit that comes through in a magical way. You have to experience it to believe it."
The movie has grossed more than $977 million worldwide. That box-office run, six months on from release, is credited with introducing a new generation to the catalog and pushing the 2005 hits set back to the front of the sales line.
Paris Jackson, the singer’s 28-year-old daughter, distanced herself from the film over what the reporting describes as “inaccuracies.” The estate’s approval and her objection stand side by side in the available account; neither cancels the other.
The production itself was delayed from a planned release the prior year. Supposed legal issues forced reshoots and script revisions before the spring debut.
Behind The Essential Michael Jackson in the 2026 standings sit Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving in second and Harry Styles’ Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally in third. Fleetwood Mac’s 50 Years, Don’t Stop holds fourth. Olivia Rodrigo’s You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love is fifth.
Also inside the top ten are The Weeknd’s The Highlights, Ed Sheeran’s +, = ÷x (Tour Collection), Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide, Alex Warren’s You’ll Be Alright Kid (Chapter 1), and Oasis’ Time Flies: 1994-2009.
Jackson’s own studio landmarks are charting again as well. Thriller sits at No. 16. Bad is at No. 20. The 1982 and 1987 albums still move units alongside the hits compilation that now leads the year.
Jackson died of acute propofol intoxication. His personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, was found responsible for his passing. The music did not stop with the verdict or the funeral. Catalog demand has outlasted the courtroom fight and the tabloid cycle that followed.
Record companies spend heavily to launch new albums into a crowded streaming market. A two-decade-old greatest-hits disc just beat them on the Official Charts Company’s tally through the third quarter.
The biopic put Jackson’s image and sound back in front of mass audiences. Buyers and streamers responded the old-fashioned way: they played the records. The Essential Michael Jackson did not need a new single, a festival slot, or a social-media campaign from the artist himself. The songs carried the load.
That is the plain lesson from the 508,000-unit lead. Talent this large does not expire when the calendar turns, and a culture that still rewards it is not broken.
